Report: Anti-Semitic incidents in N.J. drop, but numbers still worrisome

Anti-Semitic incidents in New Jersey dropped by more than half in 2013 from the prior year, but the state still ranked third in the nation for such bias cases, according to a private agency that monitors civil rights and human relations in the country.

The Garden State had 78 reported anti-Semitic incidents in 2013, trailing New York and California, which had 203 and 143, respectively, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s yearly “Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents.”

The reported incidents include vandalism, harassment and assaults.

The positive news is that the number of reported anti-Semitic incidents decreased by 55 percent, from 173 in 2012, according to the ADL report.

Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex counties saw the highest rate of incidents in 2013. Passaic County had no reported incidents and Bergen County had one reported incident in Oakland in March, when anti-Semitic graffiti was found at a recreational complex. It included a crude drawing with the words "eye hate Jews" scrawled across it, along with a drawing of a Star of David.

Nationwide, there was a decrease from 927 in 2012 to 751 in 2013.

Shayna Alexander, ADL’s recently appointed New Jersey Community Director, was reluctant to declare any victories, despite the drop in recorded incidents. “Anti-Semitism and other bias-motivated incidents are things that go vastly underreported. The numbers are probably a lot higher,” she said. Alexander said that 78 incidents of anti-Semitism is 78 too many, meaning that last year Jews and Jewish institutions were victims of assault, threat, vandalism or harassment more than once a week — “It only motivates us to increase our work to help the targets of hatred,” she said.